Born Again | Mamalode
I would agonize over my intense and pointless guilt. Why hadn’t I found her sooner? She would dwell on the anger of my having not carried her inside of me. She had replaced her birth mother with me, and I could also be replaced. I could leave her, but she would try and leave me first. I would hold her closer the further she pulled away until she would finally break in half; the release, the fear and happiness all mixed together in a messy and desperate cry.

The Avon World Sales Leader, Another Side | @Dooce
When I saw that card reminding me of my mammogram I really wanted to throw it away. I’ve had a mammogram every year for how many years? I’m so busy. I have too much to do. But something wouldn’t let me throw it away. So I called and made an appointment seven days before your cousin’s wedding… yeah… two days before the wedding is when I got the call that there was a suspicious shadow on the film, and they needed me to come in for more tests. I went in and had another mammogram and an ultrasound. That’s when they told me that they had found *it* and needed to do a biopsy. *It* was small, but I shouldn’t put off the biopsy, and I was like, I HAVE TEN PEOPLE COMING TO STAY AT MY HOUSE DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS? Who has time for a biopsy?

The current culture demands that every mother be all in, all the time. My sister-in-law told me about a mom at her kid’s elementary school who took the basic school T-shirt that everyone got and painstakingly created a beaded fringe at the bottom, replete with cinched waist and perfectly cuffed sleeves. All of the other little girls gathered around, screeching variations of “I want the same thing!” Incredibly enough, instead of laughing in their unrealistic faces the way our parents might have, all the adults started mumbling, “Yes, O.K., we can do that, sure, I’ll learn a challenging new craft, no problem. Tonight, of course. We’ll do it tonight.” This made my sister-in-law, who was already late for work, want to teach a few people the artisanal craft of rearranging someone’s face using only your bare hands. We are outclassed at every turn. We are outspent and out-helicoptered and outnumbered. It used to be good enough just to keep your house from being coated in a thin layer of dog hair and human feces. No longer.

Five Hard Truths About Adoption Adoptive Parents Don’t Want To Hear | Louisa Leontiades
That I dream of my reunion with my natural parents has little to do with your ability to parent me, although it may be enhanced by it. If you tell me that happy children do not find their natural parents, you invalidate my very natural need to repair the bond that was once broken. You might use manipulation and indirect blackmail to stay my hand by putting me into the position of telling you that I do not appreciate your parenting and if so, I will learn by your example. I will also use manipulation and emotional blackmail. You might force me to commit sacrilege by contradicting the universally acknowledged ideal of motherhood. Because you know full well that I will hesitate from further rejection and keep me bound to you by fear. Fear leads to pain. Pain leads to destruction. Is that what you want?

Adoption is such a beautiful thing. Adoption brought me into a family, something that I will always be grateful for. I used to think of adoption as putting together — two parents coming together with a child to create a family. But when I had my children, I started to understand that adoption is also an undoing — a mother being separated from her child.

Sweden’s Prostitution Solution: Why Hasn’t Anyone Tried This Before?
Sweden’s unique strategy treats prostitution as a form of violence against women in which the men who exploit by buying sex are criminalized, the mostly female prostitutes are treated as victims who need help, and the public is educated in order to counteract the historical male bias that has long stultified thinking on prostitution. To securely anchor their view in firm legal ground, Sweden’s prostitution legislation was passed as part and parcel of the country’s 1999 omnibus violence against women legislation.

UNICEF: Big Lies About Little Haitian People | Timothy Schwartz For Open Salon
Sonson had entered what the AP called “the bureaucratic labyrinth of Haiti’s adoption limbo.” Over the next two months, Tamara was allowed to visit Sonson only twice, for 20 minutes each time. She was told that she would have to wait at least six months for him to be declared an orphan. After that, with Tamara paying for his expenses, she and Sonson could expect to wait the customary three years before they would be reunited. That’s almost as long as Sonson had been alive. He would be six years old when he got out of the orphanage. Even the most hardened UNICEF employee would have to agree that something had gone wrong.

I Was Never Bothered By Questions About My Adoption. It Was My Story. | Chicago Now
And then there was every day in between. It is in those days — the many days in between — where a life is made, where memories are grown, where family is important. I was never bothered by questions about my adoption. It did not seem odd or rude for someone to ask me something. It was just my story. A story I don’t ever remember not knowing. Maybe yours was being born on the way to the hospital or keeping your mom in labor for twenty-three hours; mine seemed just as normal to me. Like fingerprints — like delicate snowflakes — we are all different. We all have our own stories, and in our differences, we find commonality.